Of Blood and Chocolate
by KharBevNor
Summary: Seras tries to get back in touch with her human side, with disastrous consequences (Rated PG-13 for copious existential angst and some blood)


Of Blood and Chocolate

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Hellsing, a fact that still fills me with despondency. I don't own Cadbury's chocolate either, something I am only slightly less unhappy about.

AUTHORS NOTES: Anime based, one shot, Seras-centric. She's my favourite character by far, you can throw Alucard to the rabid fan-girls to be hugged to death for all I care. If you're interested takes place some time after the series. Some references may seem odd to non-Brits. Sorry for any inconsistencies or grammatical errors, but these fics just pop fully formed out my brain at 3 AM, when the correct usage of the English language is the last thing on my mind...

Reviews bring a ghost of human feeling into the dark recesses of my soul.

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            The supermarket was bright, full of people. Cheap tawdry Christmas decorations hung from the ceiling, gold, silver, green and, of course, red. A different red though, a shiny, cheery red, not the wet, organic, slick red that infested her dreams. She shook her head sadly, walking past an aisle of toiletries. Why had she even come here anyway? An out of town shopping complex, thirty or so miles from the place where she and her fellow officers had attacked a farmhouse infested with ghouls, slaying the FREAK that controlled them and burning the building to the ground to hide the signs of battle and the corpses of the undead. With no more missions, and the winters night still so young, she had decided to go for a wander on her own, keeping her mobile with her just in case anything popped up. She had walked a couple of miles, savouring the night air, which could hardly be cold compared to her dead skin, and caught a bus which had deposited her, after maybe twenty minutes, here.

            But what could a vampire buy in a supermarket? She pondered this as she walked past the items on sale. She did not need toiletries, Hellsing provided them for her. She didn't need tampons, because she no longer had periods. She didn't need a toothbrush, or toothpaste, because her fangs never seemed to become dirty.

            She walked into the next aisle, and stopped.

            It was the dessert aisle. She didn't need any of this, because she did not eat. She could not eat. Yet, looking at it all, she wanted to. She had always had a sweet tooth, always liked nothing better than a bowl of ice cream, or a box of chocolates. Her mind reeled as she walked past a galaxy of tastes and sensations forever lost to her, forever closed off by the cold, tangy, coppery taste of iced blood. As it went down, swilling through her fangs and down her throat, suffusing through her corpse-like body in a flush of heat, it felt like nothing else on Earth, like an orgasm, or even better. Yet the taste it left in her mouth was vile. Nothing compared to the taste of chocolate, or vanilla. Yet she couldn't eat. She had faced that fact at her flat, that day when Harry died, staring at a Steak and Kidney pie. She could drink, which was some relief, and she often had a cup of tea, so refreshingly warm in the mouth after chilled blood, or sometimes she even went to the pub in the village near the Hellsing manor, and drank Stella, imagining that she was back with her comrades from D-11, the ones reduced to shambling ghouls by the Cheddar priest, celebrating some successful mission. She found she could drink as much as she wanted, pint after pint, and never get drunk. Even that escape was cut off to her. All it did was make her want to wee, and when she did she could smell the reek of fermented alcohol coming from the lavatory. It didn't even enter her blood, presumably something to do with whatever mysterious internal mechanism it was that stopped vampires from contracting STD's and whatnot from their victims. Only the blood came through. Only the blood nourished her, everything else was just for comfort, just the lingering remnants of humanity her master scoffed at her for.

            Why then, could she not eat solids? She could see no reason, but some part of her, the same part that lusted after the blood of the passing shoppers, the same part that made her want to hunt in the moonlight, was revolted at the idea, a revulsion that caused her stomach to clench and her limbs feel weak.

            But…she could beat that part of her. She knew she could. She wasn't tearing open the throats of these shoppers, or stalking the dark streets of London when the moon was up, was she? Then why could she not eat, why could she not regain some touch with her precious humanity?

            As she passed out of the dessert aisle and headed to the exit, her eyes alighted on a rack of chocolate bars. There, at the top, was a Cadbury's dairy milk, her favourite, its purple wrapper staring invitingly at her. Steeling herself against the crass call of instinct, she walked over and took it, then walked up to the tobacco stand near the entrance. 

            "Just one chocolate bar, miss?" asked the young man behind the counter.

            "Yes" she said, adjusting the sunglasses she wore to cover her blood red eyes from casual onlookers. The young man nodded and passed the bar under the scanner. A strange young woman in jeans, a pink jumper and sunglasses on a winters night, buying a single bar of chocolate. There's an odd little anecdote to tell your friends on Friday night, she thought, handing him over a fifty pence piece, feeling the rounded edges of the coin as she did so. Seven sides, what was that? A septagon? She had never been strong on maths at school. The queens middle-aged face under her thumb and Britannia, the trident wielding symbol of Britain, under her forefinger. Two strong women. For a moment, she imagined Sir Hellsing as Britannia, an incongruous figure with long robes, a horse hair helmet, straight blonde hair and round frameless glasses. She smirked slightly, just as the young man told her that it would be thirty-nine pence, another oddity for his friends. She dropped the coin in his hand, and waited, staring at her chocolate bar as the man handed her the receipt and the change. Shoving both into a Jeans pocket, she walked off slowly, along the glass outer wall of the supermarket, the bar clutched in one hand. At least she no longer had to worry about the heat of her hand making it melt, as it had always done when she was little. 

            Slowly, she tore open the wrapper, and revealed a square of chocolate. She broke it off, and turned it over and over in her hand, looking at it, drinking it in with her vampiric sight, seeing every dislodged crumb, every crisp detail of the logo embossed on its top. Her nose detected its sweet scent, and she was filled with a mixture of longing and disgust, a mixture she knew from before when she had become comfortable with drinking blood, only this time the feelings were coming from opposite parts of her mind. She blinked a few times, swallowed dryly. She felt the saliva welling in her mouth as the nausea welled in her stomach…get a grip Seras! Get a grip! She could do this, she could prove to herself that her humanity was stronger than the vampire, the demon that lurked within her…

            She clapped her hand to her mouth, and gasped. She hadn't tasted chocolate for over a year now. The disgust that her undead self felt was more than overwhelmed by the beautiful taste. She chewed, using teeth unused for so long, teeth that ground, not sliced and tore… she chewed forty times, like a good little girl.

            Then she swallowed.

            She took one step before it hit her. It reminded her of the first time she had ever drunk too much, at a friends party when she was sixteen. She had had almost a quarter of a bottle of vodka, and then she had had this feeling. It felt like her insides were rotting, boiling, churning like maggots. Her throat clenched painfully, she let out a gasp as she fell against the glass choking. The young man behind the counter, who had watched her curious behaviour with the chocolate, opened his counter and rushed to help her. She could be diabetic, or something…

            Seras felt it rise inside her, boiling up through her throat, she clenched her teeth, slid down the glass, turning to see the young man running towards her. He stopped as he saw a single blood tear fall from her eye and run down her face, leaving a single line of red on her white skin. 

            Then she vomited. And, of course, it was not the vomit that a human would produce, the putrid, half-digested slush of the last few meals …no wait. It was exactly that. But her meals were a very different affair. The blood flew in an arc from her mouth across the window, and spattered on the floor. It was red and black, half congealed in places, utterly disgusting, the venting from the innards of a corpse, slimy dead blood, stringy with saliva. The man stopped in horror. What was happening to the young woman? A few other shoppers turned, to see the petite blond haired figure gasping as the blood dribbled from her mouth, the window behind her dark with gore. What was going on? Had she committed suicide or something? A child screamed.

            Seras eyes grew wide as she saw the blood. So much! Her blood…hers! Her sweet, beautiful blood, draining from her, and, in the middle, on the floor, the chewed up lump of chocolate, tainting her glorious, precious blood! How could she have enough blood now, with so much on the floor? She needed some more, needed to wipe away the sickly, nauseous taste in her mouth, fill her lifeless veins, feel alive again. But all that blood was corrupted, the sweet, evil scent of chocolate filled her nostrils when all she wanted to smell was blood, lovely, lovely blood, the elixir of life, metallic, rich, red blood. She needed some! Needed some now, and not that cold filth they gave her, with its aftertaste of plastic and anti-coagulants. She needed it fresh, warm, the texture of flesh tearing under her long, exquisitely pointed fangs and the glorious smell of fear…

            And, lo and behold! There was some blood! Standing over her, a look of laughable concern on its pimply face. Nine delectable pints, in a convenient, easy-to-open package, perfect for the modern young vampire on the go.

            She leapt, mouth wide, and when her jaws clamped shut her fangs met in flesh…cold flesh. Dead skin with but a trickle of blood in its veins. She had flung her arm over the mans throat as she leapt, some last vestige of sanity preserved from her bloodlust desperate to prevent her taking his life. The shock of it snapped her back to herself, the red mist rising like a veil, the bloodlust becoming guilt, loathing and disgust. From a distance, she knew it must look like she had tried to stand and had fallen against him, grabbing at him for support. Only he saw the fangs, the red eyes as her sunglasses slipped and the unholy lust that shone within them. She released her arm, pushed him back, stood over him as he knelt, her hands smearing blood across glass. She clamped her sunglasses back to her face, her lips clenching shut over now elongated fangs. 

            "Forget this…human" She said, in a hoarse whisper, loud enough only for him, then, she suddenly tensed, baring fangs again, and literally threw herself through the plate glass, landing and rolling in a shower of shimmering shards and then she was away and running, away from the brightly lit shopping complex, away from the people, into the night. She ran across the car park, leapt the fence in a single, inhuman bound, and then she was sprinting across a field, everything crisp in the moonlight, stark and dead and cold. She ran like one possessed, arms and legs pumping, sunglasses jerked free of her face to lie in a ditch somewhere, forgotten.             

            She collapsed after a few minute in a small copse. She had no idea how far or in what direction she had run. She was lost, alone, with only her shame and her hunger. In desperation she licked at her bloodstained lips and hands like a cat, savouring the few drops as much as she could. She hadn't felt hunger like this since she had started drinking the transfusion blood regularly. It was inconceivable, this hunger…she had to keep away from people, or she would find herself draining some poor innocent of their life before this night was out. But how to get back to the Hellsing mansion without asking directions, for she did not know where she was, exactly. And she would have to be back before morning…she could survive an overcast winters day, with some sunblock, but if the sky was cloudless…

            Something thumped at her feet. It was a packet of medical blood. Not only that, but it was a packet of B positive, what you might call her favourite flavour. She grabbed it, hoping it was not a dream, and, when she discovered it wasn't, she quickly sank her fangs into it and drained it. The liquid coursed down her throat like fire, reviving her, warming her, dampening the keening hunger. She heard a deep laugh above her, and she looked up to see Alucard, her master. He was holding another packet in one gloved hand.

            He grinned as she looked longingly at the blood, on her knees there, giving a whole new and darker meaning to the phrase 'puppy dog eyes'. He dropped the blood packet and she caught it, this time taking the time to tear off the tab and drink it properly this time. When she had finished, she slowly looked up at her master, his eyes hidden behind those ridiculous goggle-like lenses, her face radiating guilt.

            "Master…" she began, but stopped as he began to laugh again.

            "You are an odd one, Police girl. Very odd indeed. So strong that you can overcome all instinct to eat mortal food, yet" and at this he grinned even more broadly, and he let his glasses fall slightly so he could look Seras in the eye "weak enough to want to." 

            "I just…it was…"

            "Don't bother, police girl" he said, extending a hand to help her up "I have been beyond my human self for so long now I doubt I would know what you were babbling about."

            She shut her lips, looked dejectedly at the floor.

            "Don't be so glum, police girl. It's a beautiful night, and there are still many hours till sunrise. Where shall we go on a night like this?"

            She looked at him, her eyes suddenly hard, indicating one of her brief but determined bursts of assertiveness. 

            "Home"

            Alucard's deep bass laugh echoed around the trees, scattering the night birds into the dark sky.

            She was awoken the next night by a sharp but polite rap on her coffin lid. 

            "Miss Victoria?" Came Walters familiar voice. "Its time for you to get up now, I've let you sleep till six but its been dark for two hours already."

            She stretched and yawned.

            "Are you sure Walter? I'm still tired…"

            "Your breakfast is ready, Miss Victoria."

            "But Walter…"

            "Miss Victoria, I can see it congealing as we speak."

            She gave a low moan, tweaked her pyjama bottoms up and then pressed the button that raised the coffin lid, transforming it into a more normal approximation of a bed. Walter was standing next to her chair. Set out on the table, neatly and in their place, were the champagne bucket, the china bowl, the tin spoon…and a mug?

            She tilted her head to one side, looking first at the mug, then Walter, then back to the mug.

            "What's the mug for, Walter? 

            The old man shrugged, producing a thermos from behind his back.

            "Alucard suggested you might like this, although I've never known you drink with your meal before…"

            "What is it Walter?" she asked, taking the small metal container from him, feeling a ghost of warmth through its surface.

            "Hot Chocolate, Miss Victoria."


End file.
